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Old April 22nd 11, 04:44 AM posted to rec.autos.simulators
Andrew MacPherson[_2_]
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Posts: 287
Default I was trying not to expect too much from rF2, but...

(William Bradshaw) wrote:

> I should probably get in touch with the guys at Sim Racing Tonight
> and ask 'em not to review what is currently out for Top Sim Car.


:-) To be harsh but fair, I'm not sure many people pay much attention to SRT. I
kind of appreciate their efforts without actually finding them very useful. They
fall into the same category as all other kinds of 'official' reviewing, where they
can't afford to bite the hand that feeds them. And as the community feeds them zero
in this instance that's fair enough!

My own review of the mod goes something along the lines of... "good grief! I can't
believe how much easier to drive these are than iRacing's cars!" This may or may
not be a good thing. :-)

> I think most people (AKA sim racers) can agree that graphics
> doesn't define a sim, but the physics in the background. So far,
> it's been promising from their updates.


Oh absolutely. iRacing have proved, among other things, that you certainly don't
have to have flash-bang-whizzy graphics effects to be satisfyingly immersive.

Having said that, in the long, lonely races I tended to have I would have
appreciated a helicopter flying over occasionally to break the monotony. :->

> Frankly, I got tired of the NSS cars not reacting as the real
> life counterparts do!


Which is a very good reason to lack motivation.

> That, and I'm tired of seeing huge numbers of VHR
> servers on the in-game server listing. lol.


:-) I can imagine that must be pretty demoralising. As a past master of wasted time
on under-appreciated projects I can feel a little of your pain.

> Agreed. It's kind of strange of them to hype up the great damage
> modeling and graphics, but not care about the physics so much.


The same mystery applies to so many projects, including my current experience of
Shift2. You'd think by now, with so much processor power available, even on
consoles (compared to early sims), it would be relatively "easy" to approximate
some kind of reality. Not iRacing standards, but good enough.

I really do think those darned hand-held game controllers are to blame. If we were
serious about improving sim racing we'd develop the very best, cheapest handheld
controller, boosting the analogue stick controls in some clever way so that much
better car control was possible, meaning devs had to work a little harder at car
control... which, being realistic, would probably mean they'd just boost the aids.
But a man can dream!

> Also heard they outright cancelled release in Europe.


Well, oval racing really *is* completely unknown to and ignored by most Europeans,
so it was probably never going to sell. However the PS3 version isn't region locked,
so we can at least import it if we want. I just don't want at current prices.

Which I guess is where the NSS mod comes in.

Mmm... enough gossip from me I think. Time to go explore Shift2 a little more.

Andrew McP
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